The percentage of employable population in India has achieved a 5.6 per cent increase from 33 per cent in 2014 to 45.60 per cent this year, the fifth edition of the India Skills Report 2018 has revealed. Hiring amongst the fresh talent has increased significantly in the past five years specifically from domains such as engineering, Bachelors in Pharma, Masters in Computer Application and other focussed professional courses. "We are delighted to present the fifth edition of India Skills Report. It is great to see that while the employability in the supply side is improving, organisations too are gearing up for creating more jobs after a subdued job-market activity in 2017," Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and CEO of PeopleStrong, said on Friday. "We as a country are undergoing a phase of upward transition as we embrace the impact of digitisation and automation in our lives.

A lot of effort is needed both at the talent supply side and the demand side to ensure we complete this phase with flying colours," Bansal added.

However, there has been a significant drop in hiring amongst students from MBA courses. This may be attributed to the exponential rise in the number of MBA colleges the quality of talent is dropping which needs attention, the report said. On the other hand, companies have also shown a revival in their hiring intent. According to the India Hiring Intent survey — conducted by PeopleStrong, a leading HR solutions firm — organisations across sectors expect 10-15 per cent of increase in hiring intent from 2017 to 2018. The survey reported that sectors like retail, banking, financial services, insurance as well as ITES, Software, Hardware and IT are expecting increase their pace of hiring. Domains such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, data analytics has emerged as new opportunities, the report said.India Skills Report 2018 is a joint initiative by PeopleStrong and Wheebox in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The report captures insights and trends from the largest employability test taken by more than five lakh students across 29 states and seven Union Territories.